The invention relates to an aircraft galley comprising a trolley stowage. The invention further relates to a method of operating an aircraft galley of this kind.
The passenger cabin of a modern aircraft typically is equipped with a plurality of galleys which are located next to aircraft doors and adjacent to a passageway as well as an aisle in an entrance area of the aircraft. A galley which is described in DE 10 2006 023 047 B4 or U.S. Pat. No. 7,780,114 B2 comprises a main body being separated into a plurality of compartments which are suitable for receiving galley inserts such as, e.g., coffee makers, ovens and the like, as well as compartments which are suitable for accommodating so-called standard units which may be loaded with items to be supplied to passengers on board the aircraft or items required by a cabin crew during the flight. Further, the galley comprises a trolley stowage, i.e., a compartment which is arranged in a section of the galley adjacent to a floor of the aircraft cabin and which is suitable to accommodate a predetermined number of trolleys. The galley layout, i.e., the size and the number of the various compartments is adapted to the cabin layout, i.e., to the maximum number of passengers on board the aircraft, and the space requirements for the passageway and the aisle extending adjacent to the galley.
In the operation of modern passenger aircraft, cabin layout flexibility becomes more and more important, since it may be economically worthwhile for an airline to operate the aircraft at certain times, e.g., during the holiday period, with a greater number of economy class seats and at other times, e.g., outside the holiday period, with a greater number of business class seats. Moreover, it may be desirable for an airline to vary the total number of seats in the aircraft passenger cabin depending on the utilization or route, for example. An optimization of the aircraft utilization therefore requires not only a positioning of the passenger seats and a division of the aircraft passenger cabin into a business class area and an economy class area as flexibly as possible, but also an adjustment of the galley capacity to the varying number of passengers on board the aircraft.